Be careful with cold weather fermenting....

Be careful with cold weather fermenting....

Monitor your temps if your fermenting now in a place that gets colder than your desired fermentation temps.

If yeast detects consistent dropping temps for 12 or more hours straight, they may take that as an indication to go to sleep.

Given the surface area of the average homebrewer fermenter, its easy to overcome the temperature generated by fermentation itself.

There are plenty of homebrew gadgets sold online to add a little heat to your fridge. Most of them put out about 40 watts of heat. If you have a refrigerator or some active cooling method, just plug it in and let it fight it out with the refrigerator. It will stabilize fairly quickly.

Other things that can work are light bulbs if you protect your fermenter from light exposure, or any number of heating products sold at your local hardware store to keep pipes warm.

Be careful about getting your fermenter too warm, you don't want to cook the yeast.